Japan planning thread

[Takoneko]

I’ve just booked the hotels for my third trip to Japan next year and about to start planning the itinerary in earnest.

Japan threads pop up here quite a bit and I think people spend a lot of time on planning for Japan trips. I thought it might be nice to have a shared thread where we can pool questions, tips and share research for anyone who has a trip coming up.

All budgets and styles of trip are welcome, whether you’re going hiking, temple-hopping, skiing or visiting theme parks, maid cafes and arcades and whether you’re going to hostels or 5 star hotels. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to enjoy Japan. It has something for everyone.

We’re a couple in our late 30s and our trip will be mid-budget, probably up to about £3.4k per person with food and spends. We’ve splashed out a bit on direct JAL flights and have upgraded all our hotel rooms to at least king size beds in hotels that are in really well connected locations. They are all mid-range Japanese business hotel chains rather than luxury hotels though. (Candeo, Daiwa Roynet and Sotetsu Fresa). We like Japanese food but we’re definitely more likely to be eating eat in mom and pop restaurants and mid-range Japanese chains than in fancy kaiseki places. Any recommendations for mid range restaurants with relaxed atmospheres would be very welcome.

We plan to use the Sanyo-San’in rail pass in the second half of our trip and would be really interested to share ideas for places to visit with anyone else who is planning on using that pass (or who has used it in the past). At the moment we are thinking Iwakuni, Miyajima, Kurashiki and Onomichi from Hiroshima and Himeji and Uji from Osaka, but we are open to other ideas. I speak passable tourist Japanese and we are ok with going to places that don’t cater to English speakers and muddling through with broken Japanese and Google translate.

Hopeful bump. Forgot to include that we’ll be spending 3 nights in Tokyo, 5 in Osaka and 5 in Hiroshima and then flying back from Hiroshima via Tokyo.

I’d really like to hear about day trips by train from Osaka or Hiroshima that other people have enjoyed.

I clearly misjudged the level of demand for a thread like this. 😂

A couple of months ago it felt like the holidays section was full of Japan threads… maybe it’s the wrong time of year now. I might try again when my trip gets a bit closer.

We've booked to go at Easter and haven't started the planning yet so I hope this thread fills up! So far I'm thinking basing ourselves from Tokyo and Kyoto, so we're not spending too much time travelling. DH is a big railway fan so I expect we'll do lots of day trips. Any recommendations for these would be brilliant. Our kids will be 8 and 11 by then.

We just returned; such an amazing holiday. You have been twice already so you probably know what you want to do; your question is quite general so maybe that’s the reasons for not answers.

We bought a travel pass in Tokyo for the underground for 3 days which worked cheaper. At the tourist office with our passports.

in Kyoto we bought a day pass for the buses.

I wish i would have known about the tax free shops to carry my passport with me all the time. Missed on some free VAT.

Our speed train was delayed for more than 2 hours due to heavy rain on the return from Kyoto to Tokyo, it took 5 hours and we were able to claim a refund.

Loved Japan, we did lots of things but missed lots of others as it was only one week. I want to go back already.

We just ate were we fancied it including convenient store foods. Better not to eat at very touristic places; our most expensive meal was at Gion and a bit of a rip off. The rest was cheap and great, there is so much choice there.

We all loved Tokyo. We used Kyoto as a based to go to other places. Found that most of the temples in Tokyo we visited were free but in Kyoto you had to pay, at least the more popular.

I liked Nara. we did Hiroshima and Migayima on the same day. Only spent 1. 5 day exploring Kyoto itself; has gone a bit over touristic and lost a bit of of its authenticity. Next time will stay in Tokyo and Ossaca; maybe overnight in a couple of other places

@DuringDinnerMints Really glad to have someone else here. Hopefully we aren’t the only ones.

How long will your trip be and what sorts of things are you interested in seeing and doing?

Our favourite days on our trip this year were Nara (which is an easy day trip from Kyoto) and Kamakura (which is a day trip from Tokyo).

Kamakura was our absolute favourite day of the whole trip. I can’t recommend it enough but I would stay flexible and not book the train in advance because you want to be able to check the Fuji visibility forecast and go on a clear day. I don’t know if I would have been as blown away by it if we hadn’t had the Fuji view and on a clear blue sky day the giant Buddha surrounded by the cherry blossom was breathtaking. We also made the very sensible choice of paying for the green car (first class) for the journey home from Kamakura and wish we’d done that on the way there. The regular carriages on that route are commuter carriages laid out like the tube and it’s busy so you generally end up standing for the journey. The green car meant a proper comfy seat and it was only about £5 each to upgrade to green car.

Hello, lovely thread. My husband and I love visiting Japan as well. We have been twice so far, Tokyo and Kyoto. We are going back again later this year but that is less of a holiday and more we have some business we need to do / helping with family (I have some family there).

Have you considered visiting Koyasan from Osaka? I haven’t been but it’s on my
list. Himeji is definitely a must imo. We took the bus there from the station but we walked on the way back. It’s a nice clean city to walk in.

As for restaurants, I like to look on Google maps. One tip is that Japanese give 3 stars for what we would consider to be more like 4-5 stars. So if a restaurant has 4.5 stars, it’s probably visited by a lot of tourists, while somewhere with 3.5 stars for example would be a very good restaurant as reviewed by Japanese people.

@Bambooforest

You are probably right that my questions were a bit vague. I also think the fact that I’m asking about places that are not on the usual Golden Route probably didn’t help.

What did you think of Hiroshima and Miyajima?

We’ve never been before so interested in hearing what others thought. Did you go up to the top of Mt. Misen?

Glad you had a wonderful time and that the Typhoon wasn’t too disruptive to your plans. I’ve heard that some people ended up stuck for 10 hours on Shinkansen in the middle of nowhere yesterday only to be sent back to the station they started at.

It sounds like you packed a huge amount into a week. I like Osaka as a base for exploring, which is why we’re going back again. Like you, I was meh about Kyoto.

Just on the passport thing, it’s not just missing out on tax free shopping. You are legally required to carry your passport with you (with your visa/visa waiver in it) at all times as a foreigner in Japan. If you’re stopped by police, they can ask for your passport and will escort you back to your hotel to get it if you don’t have it. I’ve never been asked, but have read about people who have had their plans for a day out ruined because a police officer wanted to see their passport and they then missed a booking/train etc because the police traipsed them back to their hotel.

@Suzuran We were toying with the idea of renting a car and going out to Koyasan and Nachi falls, but then looked at our itinerary again and it looked a bit over-packed.

We haven’t ruled it out entirely though.

I will keep an eye on this thread too as we want to go back next year. We want to see Niikko, , Kamakura, Mount Fuji, another town South of Japan where DH wanted to see a waterfall; can’t remember the name. Didn’t have time on this trip as kids wanted to do shopping in Tokyo.

what time of the year you are going?

Mid-late April.

@DuringDinnerMints How long are you going for? Your kids might enjoy a day to DisneySea, I believe it’s the only one in the world but I could be wrong about this without looking it up to be certain. My husband and I went and it was a lot of fun.

Going to the top of Tokyo Skytree is a fun experience, I recommend going early in the day as by mid afternoon it can become hazy from the sun glaring at that angle. Kids might enjoy teamLab Planets as well? I wanted to go but wasn’t able to unfortunately can’t comment firsthand.

Ueno Park is another idea.

For Kyoto, I’m not sure if this is in your budget or if kids would enjoy it, but there are once a year dances held in the Spring by geiko and maiko (geisha), that would be pretty special.

https://www.discoverkyoto.com/event-calendar/april/spring-dances-geiko-maiko/

Kyoto is very very very busy I have to warn you, not to put you off it but it’s quite crowded with tourists, particularly large tour groups.

Great idea for a thread- we’re going next April for the first time with DC 6 and 8. All we’ve booked is flights!
Think we’re going to go for Mimaru hotels as I’ve heard they’re good with kiddos/bunk beds etc. but if anyone can recommend specific locations that would be great.
Our loose plan is Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Tokyo. We’d really like to go to kidzania, a cat island and maybe Disney too. Has anyone been to a cat island they can recommend?

I second Disneysea. We were a group of 5 adults including two people who would definitely not have chosen Disney if they were doing the planning. Everyone enjoyed that day. We went the week Japanese school terms started and it was very quiet with short queues.

I was looking through our photobook of our trip to Japan in 2019, for the Rugby World Cup.

My highlight was staying in Gion and the Lanes and Lanterns twilight walking tour - absolutely stunning.

We took the shinkansen from there to Hiroshima - an early train so that we arrived as the museum opened. It was amazing and we learned so much, but it was very emotional. From there we went to Mayajima which seemed very busy with tourists, and the tori gate was being repaired, so was under wraps at the time.

You are probably aware of the service where suitcases are forwarded on to your next location, so that you don't have to lug them around? We used this service from Gion, and each had a backpack with our stuff for a couple of nights before we checked in to our hotel in Oita. Was really useful.

Hope you have a fab trip!

No direct experience of Mimaru but we’ve never yet had a bad experience with a Japanese hotel. We’ve always chosen Japanese business hotel chains and they’ve always been spotlessly clean and well equipped, so I don’t think you can go far wrong with a Japanese chain. Looking at their locations on a map, the Ginza East location is probably the one I would choose in Tokyo, especially if you’re thinking of going to Disney. We stayed in that area this time and being able to walk to so many different metro and train lines was really handy. Staying near Hatchobori station is ideal to get to Disney without having to get up at the crack of dawn. I preferred Disneysea to Disneyland but both are great. The Japanese have a way of taking American brands like 7/11 and Disney and perfecting them. They really embrace Disney and everything down to the toilets, the food and the vending machines is perfectly themed. Even the hand soap comes out in a mickey shape.

I didn’t know about the passports until we were in Kyoto. Didn’t know about the visa waiver either; but just looked at the passport and saw it. Read a few threads before and noone mentioned it; this was part of a bigger trip to OZ and we were very busy before we left.

Miyayima was beautiful. we only went to Hiroshima for the peace park and museum which was worth it. Can’t comment much about the city as didn’t explore it. I must admit I didn’t spend as much time at the museum; read some of the stories but not all, a bit traumatic. I enjoyed the park. We didn’t see Mt Meisen, we did Hiroshima and Miyayima on the sane day so a bit tight, the cable car stopped for the day when we got to Miyayima.

I am glad we made it back to Tokyo as our flight home was the next day. I think the rain started as we left Kyoto on Tuesday.

From Osaka/Kobe, you can visit Arima Onsen - a beautiful little town full of onsens and ryokan. It's just over the other side of Mount Rokko. You can also take a trip to see the bridge at Akashi or cross over to Awaji Island.

Even if you're not interested in sea life, the aquarium in Osaka is not to be missed! Phenomenal place!

I definitely think I’ll add the aquarium to this trip. Thanks! I love zoos and aquariums.

@DuringDinnerMints We had a very enjoyable train day trip from Tokyo. Get the book Japan By Rail. Vital info. We went on the monorail out of Tokyo. New experience for us. We then used the Enoden Line to Hase and Kamakura. Retro but fun. We also used JR to get out to Matsumoto castle. Then on to Nakasendo highway walking route at Tsumago. Carried on to Kyoto. It’s a railway fan’s delight! The trains don’t have lots of luggage space. You can forward luggage via the post office. Have fun planning and get the book. Well worth it.

Today I was out in London and by chance stumbled across a free exhibition about Japanese design and a lovely lady working there told me about an old Japanese guy who runs a toy museum in Himeji and has collected thousands and thousands of toys. I’ve looked up the reviews for the museum and it sounds amazing. I’ve now added the toy museum to my list. I’ve added a link in case anyone else is interested.

https://www.japan-experience.com/all-about-japan/himeji/museums-galleries/japan-toy-museum

@TizerorFizz You’re so right. Japan is amazing if you love trains.

Matsumoto castle looks great. I am going to store that one away for a future trip. I really love a castle, but DP will think I’m nuts if I add yet another one to this itinerary.

We've just booked flights for a first trip next year. July so it'll be very hot and humid but we're restricted when we can go.

Too early to book hotels etc but we intend to do Tokyo-Hakone-Kyoto-Osaka-Hiroshima-Tokyo (Disney) and then home.

I'll watch this thread to hopefully pick up tips and advice.

@QueenMabby
How long is your trip?

July will be hot but it also has advantages. There will be fireworks and summer festivals. There’s also a sumo basho that month in Nagoya if that’s something you might be interested in seeing. Going to the sumo on your journey between Hakone and Kyoto would be really straightforward. Makuuchi matches (the highest ranked fighters) are in the afternoon to early evening so it wouldn’t require an overnight stop.

We stayed in Miyagima and was really lovely once the day trippers left. Took the rope way and walked down as we were short of time.
I would probably stay two days to get the best experience.

Mimaru Asakusa is in a really good location, have direct access to Haneda airport.
The apartments are very good for the families, with small kitchen and laundry.